swarlesbarkley wrote:pepe1991 wrote:Gordon isn't bad on ball defender, but as team defender he kind a blows.
Gordon's whole "gimmick" in nba is to be athletic marvel without much basketball intelligence.
Just when i thought after last year that i was just rude and unfair with that assumption as he improved as passer, he goes whole summer to work on post up , turnaround mid range jumpers. Because ? Reasons.
It's funny how somebody spent 4 months working on part of his game that he menaged to implement like 3 times in 400 min , and shoot 32% from that shots.
Haven't you been saying that pro ballers can't really improve their game in the offseason anyway? That they're basically who they are going to be 4-5 years into career? Why does it matter what he worked on?
Can 30% three point shooter work hard whole summer and become 33% three point shooter on high usage ? Yes.
Can player who is poor dribbler and struggles with basic ballhandling skills develop somewhat respectul ballhandling skills over few months? Yes
Can 33% three point shooter work his way into Curry type level? No.
Can average ballhandler become Kyrie by just working hard? No
There are natural limits to everything.
I always debated, and in Gordon's case turned out to be right, that player won't make huge leaps in development after few years.
When half of the board argued me about Gordon and his potential i kept saying he will never be allstar level player ( there were few others who also agreed with me like fendilim) but vast majority of a board had " Paul Geroge, Blake Griffin, Kawhi Leonard" level of expetations.
Once he made progress i said he will be 3rd best player on really good team. To this date he never proved he can be that.
If you look at his stats in second half of third season (after Ibaka trade) and compare it to his stats last year, they are almost identical. His stats of first half of season with Ibaka are similar with his stats this year.
He is power forward and best used there. He will never be SF and he will never be superstar level player.
You try to pick fight with me for quite some time, like last time you didn't even read what other poster said about Fultz when you jumped on me for "using preseason stats". And that's just one of examples in last few weeks. If you wanna argue with me about something, fine we can work something out

. But picking Gordon for my " development isn't miracle work" claim would be pretty poor decision as he is body of evidence that no matter how young player is entering nba, after few years he hits plateau.
Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans. -John Lennon